A portal has opened in Basildon, Essex on the site of Laindon Shopping Centre: a half demolished brutalist plaza earmarked for redevelopment. A young journalist enters an alternative reality Essex, where the synth pop scene pioneered by Basildon natives Depeche Mode and Alison Moyet flourished, and collective action defeated Thatcherite individualism to create a queer communist Essex utopia. The human creatures from the portal world move between the two Laindons via the unmanned border of the portal, calling in to question the discrepancy in representations of the movement of migrants and of gentrifiers. Essex Mums become freedom fighters challenging top down racist policymaking and rejecting the delusion of white working class sentiment. Narratives blur as the portal people run to save their home from destruction while Basildon Gospel Choir sing an ode to the town’s future.

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